The time I outsourced Christmas Day (and Christmas Eve) feasts to the QT and took all the credit…
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I recently wrote an article about how I am dipping out of the Christmas crazy—refusing to partake of the madness, eschewing tradition, and going low-key.
Well, it gets even better.
I have totally outsourced the food.
Three Christmases ago I found myself catering for my in-laws at fairly short notice (you know how people don’t decide where they will be or who they’ll be with until the last minute).
I didn’t mind at all, but I did do something radical. I forked out for a QT Christmas-at-home feast rather than face the crush at the markets and spending many hours of my holiday chained to the stove.
Paying more than $600 for food hamper was something of a risk, I recall thinking. What would I get? Would it feed four-to-six as promised? Would we enjoy the food? Would it be as good as I could make from scratch?
My order is in! All of this is coming to a table near me.
I fronted up to the QT on the afternoon of Christmas eve to take possession of my silver chilled boxes and my excitement started building immediately. It was, in essence, a Christmas present to myself.
I hauled the boxes home, cleared the fridge space and bench space and began unpacking.
The first thing that wowed me was the attention to detail. Everything was prepared to the final minute of plating. The meat was sous-vided and vacuum packed, the sauces were emulsified, the vegetables were nearly cooked and all the garnishes were chopped and waiting in tiny air-tight containers. Bless them they included very detailed instructions on how to bring things together, from what temperature to turn the oven to and cooking times, to what sauces needed heating and what went on cold.
I recall we all stood in the kitchen oohing and aahing and wondering what to eat first.
My overriding memory is of realising that not only did we have a Christmas feast for six, but we could split it up into a Christmas Eve feast and a Christmas Day feast.
We ate the seafood on Christmas Eve, relishing the fresh oysters and smoked salmon and prawns which we paired with fresh sourdough and Pepe Saya butter. My idea of actual heaven.
My in-laws love seafood and as I spread everything out on the table I felt a sense of pride and also hunger that I don’t usually experience when I have spent all day in the kitchen because I am usually too frazzled to enjoy my meal.
We then roasted a turkey roll and had a series of vegetables and salads to go with.
This was part of our Christmas Day lunch (as opposed to our Christmas Eve dinner and our Christmas Day dinner). And here was I, worried there wouldn’t be enough food…
Holy moly I had never cooked turkey before (much less fluffy mounds of stuffing) and it went down a treat.
By this stage we were all experiencing near-indigestion and had to give it a good long while before tackling dessert. But we managed – a Christmas pudding with brandy custard.
Every morsel that entered our mouths was worthy of the QT restaurant only rather than giving credit to the skilled chefs who put it together, the glory was mine. All mine.
The next day we woke to a fridge absolutely groaning with more food. So we did an antipasto platter, dips with flatbread, and another roast with more sides for lunch. We weren’t actually hungry after the night before but hey, it was Christmas Day, so over-indulging was always part of the plan.
It was also time for the tiramisu.
I recall sitting down with the family to watch Die Hard thinking I was basically a domestic goddess.
By early evening I decided we would go another meal. Righto everyone, it’s time for a porchetta with duck fat potatoes followed by pavlova with mango and blueberry I squealed as I launched myself back into the kitchen. I mean, I was hardly cooking. More like heating things up in a really fancy way.
One must appreciate how artfully I arranged the mango and blueberries, before triumphantly presenting “my” pavlova to the family.
“Dear God”, said my father-in-law as he exchanged a worried look with my mother-in-law. “I don’t think I can eat another thing”.
Not one hour later, they had devoured another hot meal and gourmet dessert in its entirety with nary a complaint, and the fridge was finally starting to empty.
The entire family loved the experience, me most of all.
I learned new things, cooked new things, created Christmas tablescapes worthy of Instagram and felt truly, deeply, festive all while doing so.
So last weekend, when my in-laws asked what was happening at Christmas, I knew what had to be done. QT Christmas at home is booked for a collection on December 24.
I see this year I will be “cooking” a roasted corn-fed chook (with garlic cream, chicken jus and burnt lemon), dry-aged Canowindra pork cutlet (with Lilliput caper and golden raisin salsa), and a slow roasted lamb shoulder (with anchovy crème and fine hebs), rather than the proteins of my previous package. But the rest is very similar, just like watching Die Hard will be. Why mess with a good thing.
Is it value for money, absolutely. Is it delicious? Without doubt. Am I excited? Completely. Merry Christmas to me. You can check out the full menu here and order your own Christmas gift to yourself.
Disclaimer. Emma paid full price for her first QT Chrismas pack but this year QT put this one on the house given her effusive letter of thanks to the chefs she wrote back in 2020.
